David Bowen commentaries

In his regular columns for the Financial Times and ft.com, senior consultant David Bowen has pursued themes ranged from customer relationship management and career marketing to ‘ethical’ retailing and royal family sites. His collected Financial Times and ft.com columns from January 2001 onward are indexed by theme and available for viewing on this site.

You can access articles directly by selecting a link below.

  • Why the web’s mourners are dead wrong The latest obituarist for the website blames its demise on a nest of apps, but far from facing a poisoned fate its importance will increase, David Bowen says.
  • What to make of Google+ The arrival of Google+ Pages has caused a scramble among companies for a strategy to exploit this latest social opportunity. But which one, asks Robert Curran.
  • What makes the best web managers To run a corporate web presence successfully requires a blue-chip skills portfolio that combines often contradictory attributes, David Bowen says.
  • How Twitter should really be used to manage reputation The corporate rush to install Twitter monitoring services could damage the credibility of social media channels for customer communications, David Bowen says.
  • Where motor companies are driving their sites The carmakers’ online ‘stands’ show a much less uniform commitment to style and innovation in communications than might be expected, David Bowen says.
  • BRICs fail to build on the web Developing world corporate websites cannot be bundled together, says David Bowen. But there are clear reasons why they are failing to catch up with the pack.
  • Siemens takes a risk Siemens has reinvented the corporate home page twice in five years. After six months, David Bowen tries to discover if its latest approach is working.
  • Why we need unrelated links Giving site visitors what you think they want is not recommended if the objective is to stimulate their interest, David Bowen says.
  • Why, it’s déjà vu all over again Managing social media gives corporate web executives familiar challenges, the advent of the iPad lends them hope of coping more easily, David Bowen says.
  • Where it’s app – now and in the future Nestlé’s pioneering of apps has generated a raft of ‘early mover’ lessons for corporate communicators. But their potential has barely been scratched, David Bowen says.